If your problem is managing/verifying your decentralised online identity, you might have a look at FOAF http://www.foaf-project.org/
I have a foaf file for myself since recently: http://commonplace.net/foaf.rdf which should be readable by RDF/Semantic Web enabled browsers.

Also Google Profiles, ClaimId, etc. might help, at least to point people to a central location for your identity.

Our children’s names are Eavan and Eoghan Dempsey …

I haven’t had the opportunity to work using remote access yet.

I’m always after guest blog posts so if you, or anyone else, would like to share your experiences please do.

Marieke

Glad to see this post.

By the way, did you try to work using remote access software?

Regards,
Luck

I can still tell you what time it is on the west coast without having to think about it

Devoted to discussions related to dedicated server hosting and co-location.
Subjects include past experiences, bandwidth and performance related issues
and current recommendations.
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Thanks for the tips.

I have to admit that I went for Vimeo because I’ve embedded a Vimeo video in the blog before (Paul Boag’s guest blog post) and I knew it would work. I need to do a bit of research into wordpress.com and check what else I can embed.

Yes, I should say my name first (and where I come from). Definitely one for next time. I’m also going to try really hard not to say “…erm” as much!

Thanks

Marieke

Cheers

* Matt Watson created a Google Map mash-up of people working from home – Users were encouraged to use the tag #NWFHD and the first half of their postcode

* There is a good report on that activity on Stephen Waddington’s blog

I just sorry I was too late to catch on to this Twitter trend!

Marieke

http://www.henleyoffices.com/

Phew…quite a few pointers. Will do my best!

I have to admit that I have little personal experience of using video conferencing software (apart from Access Grid and VRVS). The University of Bath have a Video conferencing suite so that might be a good place to start.

Anyway will keep you posted!

Marieke

In this month’s PCW there is a review of some Videoconferencing kit (Aastra Telecom Vipr). Review very positive describing it as “an affordable and easy-to-manage” solution, before going on to outline the cost of £7700 per terminal + £2798 for the Application server (both ex VAT)!

Having looked at the use of video just for site-to-site conversations, I’ve struggled to find options that allow good multi-way video conferencing. The Apple iChat solution looks good, but only if you’ve all to Macs. The Windows Live and Office Communication Suite doesn’t handle multiple video streams (not properly anyway). I found some software called ooVoo which offers some multiple video stream functionality (up to 6 participants) at what looks like a reasonable $17.95 per month – but although we did a bit of testing, we haven’t got further than the free trial.

One challenge is getting people to use the software – it definitely takes some getting used to, and again, like face-to-face communication, you have to feel it is worth it to use it as opposed to a phone call or email etc.

Finally, while I’m commenting, a suggestion for another future post I don’t think you’ve covered ‘presence’ notification stuff on the blog? I mean s/w which allows you to see when your colleagues are available – Messenger supports this a bit, and the MS OCS (Office Communication Suite) has presence integrated with Exchange so your calendar can update your availability. I always really like this idea, but I have to admit it doesn’t seem to work in practice – I’m not sure why.

Yes. I’ve just covered ‘content’ reasons in the list but travel, budget and environmental reasons have a big role to play.

I’ve heard of people flying out to the states for a 1 hour meeting. Hopefully the recession has put an end to activities like that. The environmental impact aside, what a waste of commuting time, though at least now people can work whilst travelling….but jetlag has a cost too.

Personally I’m really pleased that face to face contact is still seen as important. Living only in a online/virtual world is enough to make anyone go a little skewy!

Marieke

Smart travelling!!

Also I wondered about how your manager deals with this all (assuming you have a manager). Do you catch up on Skype?

I’m going to ask my manager if they will let me move some where hot!

Todd

The move was prompted by the fact that we were looking for things we felt we couldn’t get (or couldn’t afford to get) in the UK: peace and quiet, a decent-sized plot of land to grow our own food on, a better work/life balance, a chance to have a more self-sustainable lifestyle (and proper summers and winters!).

I was the main applicant for emigration, in the ‘skilled worker’ category. This was in 2004, though, and the procedure has changed since then, so I’m no expert on how that works any more. The wait to get to the top of the queue was three years for us. We now have Permanent Residence status, which means that we have the same rights as Canadians (except for voting and standing for election).

I work as a consultant for our own firm, rather than directly for the UK employers, so that makes the tax situation less complicated. The assistance of a good accountant is invaluable, in my experience! I was lucky in already having worked for both employers – it might be harder if you are trying to do this without already having a relationship with a UK organisation. I usually fly over to the UK 3 to 4 times a year (usually funded by my UK projects). IT hasn’t been a big problem – thanks to long warranties on equipment (and a husband who’s handy with those things).

Amanda

Few questions.

Why did you move out to Canada? Was it easy to carry on doing a job where you get paid by and English company (tax etc.)? What about your visa? how often do you fly over to the UK? Does your company pay for you to do so? What about maintaining your computer? Do you have to do that all yourself?

Sorry lots more to ask but I’m trying not to bombard you!

Todd

However, the estate agent showed very little interest

I guess the truth is that against the cost of the property the cost of putting in networking, or making a bedroom double as an office, is relatively low.

The session looks at how companies implement provisions to staff to work remotely and looks at:

+ Your general duty of care to your employees: Providing a safe place of work for your employees in times of a pandemic
+ Assessing the impact of a prolonged shut-down on your employees and their remuneration structure
+ Managing your employee base: Minimising the risk of people who voluntarily put themselves at risk and understanding the duty of care your employees owe you
+ Absence management: Preparing for home working and managing home workers and productivity
+ Keeping business operations running to minimise your liability exposure

It costs £95 plus VAT. Contact Ark group for more details http://www.ark-group.com/

It seems there is always money to be made in a time of crisis! As I say in my post perhaps organisations need to look into these type of issues in a structured way and not as a knee jerk reaction to some sort of disaster!

I used to use Picasa (note spelling by the way) for photo management but recently discovered Windows Live Photo Gallery – Windows only of course, but a surpisingly good bit of software which seems less buggy and clunky than Picasa and can upload to Flickr.

The shadiness is the UK weather! Actually this bit of the garden is a sun trap, I took the photo at about 6pm.

I have a vision of us all working at home and having our food delivered by people in white ‘radiation’ suits travelling in special buggys. The streets will be empty and only those who keep our networks running will be given passes to go outside.

Sounds like a movie in the making. I’ll keep working on it!

It seems now like an advantage for a Company to have remote workers, and to be prepaired for that kind of World Issues.

As an old school Flickr user, I still tend to go there first (and last) and use their advanced search for CC photos. I generally like to relieve the textual tedium of my posts on our DA Blog with some interesting image, and Flickr always comes up trumps. I usually drop the image owner a note via Flickr saying what I’ve done – everyone’s always very friendly.

One interesting Flickr tale of mine: a while back I made some photos of my wife’s enamel Soviet badge collection http://www.flickr.com/photos/sovznak and a while later I was contacted by the guys who were creating this graphic design book, Signs and Symbols by Keith Stephenson (http://tinyurl.com/cyhfge), and they ended up using quite a lot of the pictures in their book. We have a copy, it’s really nice!

I recommend also you check out TinEye (http://tineye.com/cool_searches) which can search for images using images. Do you remember James Currall’s image-search-challenge at IWMW 2008? TinEye’s got the answer: http://tinyurl.com/dyqdk2

Glad you liked my idea.

I would recommend Radmin software that I use to access my office PC (I gave a link in my prevoious post).

But sure there is a lot of programs for remote access. You can find some interesting reviews about it at http://remote-access-software.net/working-remotely/ and by googling “remote access software”

Regards,
Luck

That’s an interesting idea. I might do a post on it. Are there any other solutions you’d recommend?

Thanks

Marieke

Except perhaps for number 6: Explore an Online Virtual World Environment.

Working remotely still seems a luxury today … and, in my belief, going further and try the virtual way is an excess. But, well, it could work.

Nowadays its being on Skype when I’m virtually “in the office”, plus a bit of tweeting and blogging. (Of course, I’m not wholly or even primarily a distance online worker these days, more “blended” I suppose)

In that regard, nothing much has changed – remote working requires actively maintaining a presence and sending out some “ripples”. This seems to be the usual sort of basic rule you engage in as a remote or semi-remote worker. So I’d agree with the article in that regard

What is different now is that workers who are effective in managing their online presence, can move the center of the pond towards them – its the ones who are always available in the physical institution, but have no effective online presence, that can end up being viewed as being on the “edge” from a client’s perspective. And that does change the rules.

S

I think I used to feel that “I missed out on the possibility of being involved in something that I’d liked to have because I may not have been passing the right person in the corridor at the right time.”

These days I feel I’m missing out on more if I don’t check Twitter that often. Though I’d agree that getting into the office every now and then makes a big difference.

I really liked Rand’s honesty and I think he’d make a fair boss, but I get the feeling there are a lot more managers out there who hold a huge number of prejudices about certain types of worker without being so up front about it.

By the way I’ve recently read the Blink book you recommended at the Remote worker day. It was the first time I’d come across Warren Harding Errors. Interesting stuff.

Marieke

Really great post with lots of echoes for me. I certainly feel myself the danger of missing out on the “unintentional, tweaked, quiet information that is transferred throughout the Pond and doesn’t leave the Pond”, and I do feel it happens not infrequently. I suspect that just recently I missed out on the possibility of being involved in something that I’d liked to have because I may not have been passing the right person in the corridor at the right time. I’ve been trying harder to go some way to “[take] the time to do a complete circumnavigation of the Pond”, as I can see more and more how important this is. I’m not sure I can say I make it round the whole of UKOLN when I’m there, but I do see it as really important to physically get on site, and I’m trying to up my frequency on this one. I also always try to get some folk out to the pub when I’m down as well. One may joke about that, but for sure for me it’s essential for “creating ripples in the pond”.

It’s also interesting to see Rand’s honesty about what might be called prejudices, albeit that he reigns most of them back in as the post reads on. The quote “There should be absolutely no consideration of a person’s location on the planet Earth when considering the work you need of them” seems clear enough.

I think the key is, as you say, “the need for a remote worker to be an effective communicator”. For me this is essential and I think we remoters have to work quite a bit harder than on-site employees in this regard. Having said that, I imagine some would say they have to work pretty hard at this even if they’re on site, so I may be wrong here. Remote working ticks many boxes for me. For starters it allows me to work for UKOLN based in Bath without my having to geographically move there, which isn’t an option at present. Remote working definitely has its tough aspects, and for me it’s really about making sure I get out and about so I don’t miss out on too much of the “pond” intelligence.

One thing that did surprise me is the assumption (if I read correctly) that remoters are more expensive than on site employees. I would suspect given savings on estate costs for starters, this is by no means the case, and I had presumed part of the attraction of employing remote working is that it can save on and organisation’s costs if anything.

If you don’t answer, and you are supposed to be available … well … then, what are you doing?

Erm….going to the toilet?!

A bit scary to always have to be on call. At work I used to scoot off for a coffee and be ‘offline’ for ages and nobody said a thing so why do I have to be available all the time now I work from home.

Marieke – I think your points make sense though as these days you want to provide evidence that you are a good employee, just to cover yourself…

Great read.

Mel

Mel

Set a green goal for the year & encourage everyone in your office to do the same. This year, our chief operating officer, Manning Sutton, asked each staff member to set a green goal for themselves and each manager to set a green goal for their department. These could be something as small as remembering to turn of their monitor each night to something as large as cutting the department’s printing in half. We have found that providing incentives or making it a competition between departments resonates with our staff members.

A confession. If I have a big report to print out I usually ask the admin staff in the UKOLN office to do it for me and post it over – they can use the fast laser ones they have on-site. My inkjet is really only for small scale stuff and if I use it a lot I notice as it eats up cartridges (a reminder to me that I’m not being very environment conscious! – though I always recycle cartridges.) I have a Cannon PIXMA MP610 – which was actually bought for me as a birthday present last year. I found the one work supplied wasn’t that effective.

I’m not sure which type of printer is the most green. I’d suspect a laser printer. A laser printer uses a lot more energy but then is faster. Inkjets use more cartridges and I’ve also read that inkjet print outs are harder to recycle because the ink cannot be removed. Anyway I guess the trick is still to print out as little as possible. There are many days when I don’t switch the printer on…so I do the best I can.

Oh…and a white board. No thanks. I have my trust note pad and it’s not as if there is ever anyone in my office that I need to explain stuff to using big diagrams. Besides it would just end up being the kids new favourite toy!

Marieke

Thanks!

I really started the blog as a way to collect together all my thoughts (ramblings) on being a remote worker (see my first entry). I’d just taken on the role of remote worker champion where I work and wanted to be able to share my thoughts with other UKOLN staff.

I talk about what difference the blog has made to the way I do things in a recent post on 6 months of blogging.

Are you thinking of starting a blog? Or do you work from home?

Marieke

We got rid of our home printer a while back. I find most of the paper I have at work is stuff given to me by others. However, I do print stuff sometimes – and I suppose the truth is that even if you only print one document a week, you still need a printer (don’t know if laser or inkjet printers are considered greener?)

I’m finding more and more that I wish I had two screens at work, but suspect that it is a luxury I should really be able to live without (especially when you factor in the minus points on the eco front)

Really sorry about your name. I had you down in my scribbles as David but then the JISC page said George and I thought they’d know best.

I’m glad you took ‘unsurprising’ and ‘not revolutionary’ in the spirit they were intended. Having worked off site for almost a year now the benefits are so clearly apparent that I am surprised when I read reports suggesting otherwise. Of course there are many challenges and the whole ‘trust’ factor is definitely one of them.

I’d also agree with your point about on-site space. I had a discussion not long ago with our admin team about what sort of hotdesks the remote workers would need. Eventually we agreed that it was relatively low priority and having an available plug socket in different offices was more important!

I really enjoyed hearing about your project and hope you get more funding to research other areas. Some of the challenges I am particularly interested in are changing people’s perspectives of remote workers, motivation and IT support for those out of the office.

Thanks again

Marieke

In some ways I am pleased that the outcomes of the LIW project are unsurprising; to have our very positive initial views of the benefits of LIW confirmed in practice is quite gratifying. Nor do I think that a revolutionary approach would get the broad buy-in from the wide range of parties that the project needed in order to succeed.

There are some interesting results, though. Firstly there is the role of middle managers – mainly departmental heads. They are stuck between trying to deliver university aims and plans and keeping the show going for the students. Some of them think they can only do this if their colleagues are being seen (physically) and heard. I don’t think it is a control desire, but it certainly seems to have to do with learning to trust LIW colleagues. Another interesting outcome was that we were wrong about the kinds of spaces that LIW staff would want when they were on campus. We thought we would have to bribe them by creating little palaces for them to use. In fact the most important issue for them was proximity to their colleagues on a subject basis; they didn’t want to be made to feel wanted by being given smart spaces to work in. They did want to be wanted by being given space where everyone else was. Ex post it is obvious; ex ante we didn’t see it.

Joannah

http://linuxmemory.net

Betty

http://desktopmemory.info

Congratulations on six months of your weblog!

Like Owen, I enjoy reading it too.

I think the point you make in your opening section about the value – and enjoyment! – writing has for the writer is an important one. And it seems to me it’s one that often gets lost when discussion turns to “measuring” the “success” of a weblog.

Oh and if you fancy doing more on how to work when chaos is happening all around you that would be good. Also I’d like some suggestions on making your partner realise you are doing something important (you’d think the pay packet would do that). Also maybe something on ethics – should you work if your kids are ill and at home?

Thanks

Shayla

A major saving (I would have thought) of Remote Working would be reduction of travel – which has clear implications for the environment. But I don’t see Remote Working included in Environmental policies (although cycling or public transport often is) – why is this?

I guess that the truth is that I see a lot of potential benefits to me personally to doing (at least some level) of remote working – and yet this doesn’t seem to be on offer (and certainly not promoted) generally by the organisations I have worked for or currently work for – I’m not sure if this is because of the ‘status quo’ Paul mentions, or whether there are really good reasons and that for the kind of work I do, in the kind of organisations I work for (University Libraries), Remote Working just isn’t appropriate.

I’m sure the best working time varies from person to person but there is scientific evidence that your body does certain things better at different times of the day. The theory is that we concentrate better at 10 -12 and then again at about 4pm onwards (which agrees with what you say). Just after lunch is the worst time of day to do anything creative or taxing.

The horizon programme The Secret Life of Your Body Clock is worth having a look at.

It points out that you are much more likely to have a car crash just after lunch because you just aren’t concentrating. In fact you should really be having a nap….which ties in with what Paul Boag says in his guest blog post.

10am-noon certainly isn’t mine, at least as far as writing/creating stuff goes; I can read/view/listen to stuff, but I rarely get much written before noon, and I’d probably estimate that I’m most productive between about 4pm and 8pm.

I completely agree about the doing stuff you enjoy doing though. I need to do something about that

I’m not sure why you feel that twittering during talks is negative on balance – I have to admit my experience of being involved in twitter while presentations are on has been generally positive – and I think the open nature of the channel contributes to this (I’ve seen other, less public, back channels be more juvenile in a ‘back row of the classroom’ type way)

I just think in this case people should put down their laptops and actually experience the presentation fully.

I like Richard’s suggestion about putting up the tweets at the end of the talk – seems a bit less stressful than having them appear during a presentation. Though might be embarrassing if there weren’t any…

I think whether to embrace the backchannel by adapting a presentation on-the-hoof will have to be an individual choice – for some people, and types of presentation, it may work, but for many it won’t. Presenters have generally taken far more trouble to prepare a presentation than a few immature, smart-alec tweeters will give them credit for; even in Shakespeare, things sometimes sag in the middle but come right in the end!

But, more straightforwardly, perhaps to the usual 5-mins-for-questions-and-feedback at the end, we could start adding (or substituting) 5-mins-for-Tweets-and-Tweetback. I.e., switch the display to show, via Twitter Search/Twemes/whatever, all the tagged or otherwise identifiable tweets about the presentation on the big screen, and ask the presenter to comment and/or audience to discuss further? I think this would be both interesting and fair, encouraging constructive tweets and hopefully discouraging less wholesome twittering by those unprepared to stand up and be counted.

Why not try smthg like this out at IWMW?

This report (http://librarygarden.blogspot.com/2009/02/twitiquette-short-but-helpful-guide-to.html) of ‘inappropriate’ tweeting from an ALA meeting is a good example of where people overstep the bounds.

I think that embracing the backchannel is one way to actually modify behaviour. Until recently Twitter has been a relatively small back water of activity in reality, and saying something on Twitter could be regarded as whispering it quietly to a colleague or two. As takeup of backchannels increases it becomes more like standing up and shouting it to the room. Throwing the backchannel up on a screen makes this transition extremely clear – if you know what you say is going to appear on a screen the moment you say it, it becomes explicit that you are interacting in a public forum, and so behave as such. There is a fine line here – I may take issue with what someone says, but I need to do this in such a way as is professional and doesn’t become personal.

When I’ve taken part in backchannels I often find myself framing my disagreement as a question rather than a straight contradiction – this gives the speaker (or others) an invitation to respond and debate.

To me it feels a lot like passing notes in class when the teacher is talking!

I’m a late adopter of Twitter, and the one thing I dislike is the horribly self-important and egocentric way someone can come across on it. Not sure I’ve managed to avoid that in my own tweets, but I’m trying!

He continues “We flatter ourselves if we think Facebook is interested in our uploaded photos from the office party. What they really want is to know what we think, what we like and don’t like, what we buy, how we plan to vote….. People will pay large amounts of money for this kind of data.”

I think that while monetizing the “attention data” by using offsite is an option that Facebook is obviously trying to make more use of, it is key to remember that Facebook already does a really good job at making money off ads within Facebook. That and of course watch out for Facebook apps and their unnecessary access to personal data.

1. If you don’t people to use your data, don’t make it available. 2. Think about what you put out there – everyone can see it including your boss and your future boss
3. Take all SN sites with a pinch of salt – they all have an agenda and it might not be the same of yours.
4. Have fun out there!

The UKOLN budget won’t stretch that far.

I do have a nice padded mouse mat and a good collection of biros!

My problem with working at home tends to be getting immersed in something and forgetting to eat (or realising when the smoke alarm goes off that whatever I had put on to heat for lunch an hour ago is no longer on the menu!)

Having said that, my Twitter followers will have noticed this pattern seems to have translated to The Office recently too (the forgetting, not the burning….)

The vision is to bring together two flocks…

1) the remote-working, freelancing, tech-savy, blogging, tweeting, coding, new media crowd

and

2) the food focused, garden addicted, food security conscious, local-is-better, good taste activists.

Remote Working, Local Eating
http://activegaliano.org/remote-working-local-eating

The above is based on observing my husband who works at home permanently, and my own experience as someone who works at home around two days a week. As far as exercise is concerned, running is very effective…

Hazel

Steph

As they point out “That’s one thing you cannot do remotely over the web – build a snowman.”

Banning Facebook or Twitter or any other distractions suggests that you don’t trust your staff to work unless you take away all other possibilities. This is, of course, hopeless, because people are endlessly inventive in the ways they can distract themselves from whatever they are meant to be doing.

I wonder how much as a home worker you are output driven? I often feel that one of the problems we have is that many managers don’t actually know what it is reasonable to expect from someone from a days work, and so rather than setting expectations based on output (something will be done by a certain time/date), they just do whatever they can to ensure people do nothing but ‘work’.

Hmmm…censorship…it’s a tricky one…along with freedom of speech.

I guess the reality is that what we see (on the Web) is often being censored in some way or other, occasionally after its gone online (as in this case) but more often before it goes online. I suppose people feel that the Internet allows access to more people’s voices, more truths, but this isn’t always the case.

No easy answer here…(can of worms comes to mind!)…. I suppose my personal inclination would be to go with Voltaire: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” (I’m sure there are many cases when I’d change my mind on this!)

Thanks also to Steph for the link to his Social Media Test Suite survey – The results make interesting reading.

I understand your point, but that’s not strictly true. See e.g. the recent arguments over an image on a Wikipedia page

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2008/12/wikipedia_is_censored.html

I’m not arguing one way or the other whether the decision in that case was “right” or “wrong”, but people certainly do get to block what we look at while at home.

I’ve got a big bookcase full of books at home and quite often when people come round they’ll ask the classic question “Have you read all of these?”. Of course the answer is “no”, but I have read quite a lot, browsed most of the rest and fully intend to have read all of them before I die (though it’s very unlikely I will!).

That said….”have you tried out all your 1,000 odd Web apps??”. You seem to have reviewed most.

Now I feel like I’m just not using my time efficiently!

Thank you! I liked the way in which Elluminate was used at the JISC e-learning programme online conference recently, particularly the fact that a recording was available after the event. I too find it useful to have another laptop logged in as a participant.

We are looking forward to welcoming you at both these JISC RSC Eastern Region events.

Bookings have now also opened for the another Eastern RSC event: Blogs, Wikis and more: Web 2.0 demystified for learning and teaching professionals. This will be on Wednesday 25th February from 11:00 – 12:00.

Places are limited so sign up now!

http://tfpl.typepad.com/tfpl/2008/12/ten-uk-information-professionals-to-follow-on-twitter.html

Thanks for sharing, I hadn’t seen the telepresence robot before now. Absolutely amazing.

If only we had the artificial intelligence to let our telepresence robots go through the day, only needing us for the key decisions….

Happy New Year!

-k
Kevin Micalizzi, Community Manager
Dimdim Web Conferencing / http://www.dimdim.com
e: kevin@dimdim.com / twitter: @meetdimdim
On Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/dimdim-facebook

I’m going to make having a healthy lunch a priority for 2009!

Might even look into a lunch time fitness class – apparently they do ‘hot tap’ just round the corner from where I live. Not sure if I’m quite ready for that yet though!

Marieke

Mark

Repeat this mantra to yourself on a daily basis: I need and deserve a nutritious, tasty lunch. You only have yourself to please – no picky kids saying “What’s this?” as if you’re trying to poison them. Make the most of this luxury!

Here’s my list of a week’s worth of quick-to-make remote worker lunches:

1) Poached eggs on toast (5 minutes, max). Have some fruit for pudding and you’ve covered all the food groups.
2) Pasta with pesto and sun-dried tomatoes (5 minutes)
3) Quesadillas – lightly fry chopped onion/peppers/chilies and grate some cheese. Put a flour tortilla into a frying pan (no fat needed), pile on the veggies and cheese, then add another tortilla on top. Cook until cheese has melted then flip (carefully) over and cook until the other tortilla is browned. Slice into wedges. (5 minutes)
4) Leek and potato soup. Takes a bit longer, but most of the cooking is unattended. Chop an onion, a potato and a leek and fry in butter for 5 minutes. Add stock (or water and a spoonful of stock mixture) and simmer for 30 minutes. Mash with a potato masher to break up the cooked potato. For a bit more kick, add some spices at the frying stage. (35 minutes, 5 minutes actual work!)
5) Tortilla – fry onion, pepper, chilli (or any leftover veg) in a small frying pan until soft. Mix in two beaten eggs and cook gently until the top is set. I like to wrap this in a flour tortilla.(10 minutes)

Your admission that your lunches are “wrong, wrong, wrong” is the equivalent of an alcoholic standing up and admitting that they have a drinking problem. Sounds like you have an eating problem – but it’s easy to fix!!

All the best for a year of fantastic lunches in 2009.

Amanda

I thought this post was really spot on. The bit about nursery and children definitely rang true!! I work from home one day a week and always find myself getting sidetracked and grabbing the first thing I can find. I quite like going down the local bakery and buying something as it gets me out of the house.

Thanks for the great blog posts, keep it up for 2009!

Merry Christmas!

Clare

(home worker, mum and worn out!!)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2008/12/broadband_britain_slowly_getti.html

As for your staff you could point them to the online broadband surveys. Or maybe offer an FAQ of things to bear in mind when deciding on a supplier. Problem is things are changing so fast it’s difficult to keep tabs on it. Letting your staff know who everyone else uses is a good idea too.

Where I work we have a cap on how much we can claim for every month for our broadband each months which means I am a bit stuck and can’t get any of the good providers.

Thanks.

-k
Kevin Micalizzi, Community Manager
Dimdim Web Conferencing / http://www.dimdim.com
e: kevin@dimdim.com / twitter: @meetdimdim

I suppose I’d just add that Twitter is now probably my main work-related social networking tool, and a (to me) valuable source of information and opinion. It’s easy and “light” and “does one thing well”. You can follow ppl who don’t follow you and vice versa, without feeling any pressure to “reciprocate”.

I don’t feel any particular expectation to update a lot, or have any expectations about other ppl’s updates, and the frequency of my posts varies a fair bit depending on what I’m doing, or how I’m feeling!

I have some sympathy with Ade’s point that being on the remote receiving end of event-related posts can become a bit tiresome if they are coming thick and fast, and you have fifteen ppl saying pretty much the same thing at the same time. I think some of the clients, like Tweetdeck, have filtering options that might help in those contexts, but I haven’t played around with them enough to say whether they solve that problem.

The work v non-work boundary is a bit of an issue, and I now consciously read/update less at evenings/weekends than I used to. But, otoh, (again like Owen), for me, part of the appeal of Twitter is that “personal” dimension: I don’t want to hear about work stuff all the time, and I enjoy hearing ppl talking about current news items or watching the footie or listening to music or going to the cinema or cooking or whatever.

Within reason, obviously: I don’t want a minute-by-minute commentary on some ghastly television programme that I’m doing my best to steer clear of. But that is more an issue of “overload”/”spamming” than the topic itself. And I think ppl generally do develop a feel for what is “acceptable” – and even if they do occasionally go over the top, hey, in half an hour it’s over and done.

Having said that, I’m also conscious that the informality and the feeling of being “amongst friends” does make it very easy to forget that one’s smart-arse one-line put-down is going to be public and persistent, or to give out more information than perhaps is wise. Mostly for that reason, I recently opted to “protect” my posts (which means that ppl have to request to “follow” me in order to read them and I don’t accept those requests willy-nilly). That means that my posts have a smaller audience, but I’m quite happy with that – I have no interest at all in figuring in the “Top 10 Twitterer lists” which seem to be flavour of the day – and it has made me feel a bit more comfortable with the context (though of course, yes, the one-liners are still “out there”….).

I really like the feeling of community chat: seeing people I know sending @messages to other people I know is somehow very satisfying and somehow reinforces my online social network.

At the moment I only have work people on twitter, whereas facebook is a mix of work and home. I had thought my work/life boxes needed to be strictly seperated, especially once I became a mum, but actually I’m loosening up a bit. I find I quite like home leaking into work (but I’d rather avoid work leaking into home!)

I find Twitter useful, and perhaps even more than that, enjoy using it. Definitely the community I am related to on Twitter is key to both usefulness and enjoyment. Some people I know relatively well, and some I only know through online interaction. I started by following people I knew already – and by this I probably mean people I had met, probably several times, in the flesh. By browsing their followers I found people that I knew, or possibly had met once, or knew of.

At this point I was following a small number of people, and had a few following me.

I then noted that people were ‘conversing’ (using ‘@’ in front of a username so it appears as a ‘reply’ in your feed) with people I didn’t know. I was a bit reluctant to start following these people I didn’t know, feeling it could be intrusive. But gradually I relaxed, and started following some of these people.

Since then my ‘community’ has grown generally either when I’ve been followed, and decided to follow back (I don’t do this automatically), and when I met people at conferences.

Interestingly I started to follow quite a lot of fellow delegates when I went to ALA this year, but shortly after I returned I unfollowed most of them – as I found that waking up in the morning to large amounts of twitter was not useful or interesting or fun!

As an example, I ‘met’ John Kirriemuir on Twitter through a Friend-of-a-Friend type connection, and although I don’t feel quite like I ‘know’ him perhaps in the way I would if I had met him in the flesh, I do feel that initial barrier has been broken down.

I think that the comment about gaps between updates is slightly unfair – although I update frequently, I don’t expect other people to do the same, and some that I follow go days between updates. This is a different type of use, but no less valid I don’t think. I also tend to treat Twitter as a 2-way medium – I don’t think I’d be so interested in updating by SMS a large proportion of the time if I wasn’t seeing the reaction/replies. However, I think you can just update when you are online, even if that’s just a short time each day.

I think the home/work thing is an issue, but it is also a strength I think. I’m a bit more ‘home’ in Twitter, using it to say things about my family and home life as well as about my work. I hope these aren’t off putting (and I was generally inspired to do this when I realised that I actually quite enjoyed hearing other people’s ‘home’ news, even when I didn’t know them that well) – but someone did mention the other day that they sometimes felt a bit ‘voyeuristic’ reading my Twitter. This is clearly not the intention, and I hope I generally get the balance right – but it is a balance.

When I was working in an office I used to share things I noticed with the people around me (much to their irritation, I’m sure!). Now that I’m working from home I think of Twitter as a way of continuing to do that and of listening in on other people’s streams-of-consciousness. I like the way that Twitter is used to share information, too. How else would I have found out the price of mincemeat in UK supermarkets yesterday?!

Now I think I’m addicted. Personally I think there’s too much football-related discussion, but then I used to find that when I worked in the real world too…

I’m now on my third Twitter account and I do *get* it. It’s all in the followers, basically. If you don’t have many followers, or they are quiet, then there’s really not much point; you’re effectively just microblogging. Once the number of followers of mine (I am @joe_librarian) went over about 80 they seemed to start going up without much effort.

Now I have a very concentrated almost live-news summary of what’s happening in the various sectors I’m involved in. And other stuff that’s fun and/or interesting. Amount of effort on my part; very little, especially for the torrent of interesting, and useful, stuff I get back.

I think we have to take a step back from all of this and let the geeks resolve the issues!

I work from home and will continue to use the services I use and store my data in the way I do. I back stuff up on my C drive and on my work area just to be safe.

Jumping in and using sevices or data storage facilities that are run by any old bloke doesn’t make sense but neither does sticking our heads in the sand and pretending things aren’t happening. I’ll watch with interest then have a go when the big mistakes have been made.

Chris

So, I think that what is being called ‘cloud computing’ is actually SaaS – Software (or Storage I guess) as a Service. SaaS is a model where you obtain access to software that is hosted elsewhere – so typically via the Internet. When I use Google Docs or Amazon S3 this is really what I’m doing.

There is definitely confusion over what people mean by ‘cloud computing’. It’s a bit like when we first started using the term Web 2.0, now it doesn’t need defining. It means whatever you want it to mean!

I totally agree with your point that we need to be careful about “deploying too many Web 2.0 apps “because they are there”“. I’m not one of those to use technology for the sake of it and if it doesn’t work for me I won’t use it (unless there is pressure from my boss!)

As I say in the article:

“The technologies that need to support remote working must make workers feel supported and connected. Furthermore they must also be straightforward to use and make tasks easier to do or they cease to be useful.2

I think these are still early days for many of us when it comes to useing Web 2.0 tools and the situation is likely to evolve a great deal in the next few years. UKOLN is to a certain extent being the guinea pig for a lot of stuff, and so am I!

Will get onto Ariadne about blogging it up! I think there is a master plan in place! Not sure what it is though…

Liked your article, though I’m still not sure if “the ideal solution for most employees who work remotely is for the set-up at home to replicate the set-up in the office”. So many things about the office I don’t want anywhere near my home, and so many things about home that make it a nice place to be: so oughtn’t the reverse to be true?

I also thought that there were some good ideas/examples in the way we set up JISC-PoWR online: the Google Apps environment is quite compelling. But in setting up systems for remote collaboration, it’s worth being sensitive to the danger of deploying too many Web 2.0 apps “becasue they are there”: faced with some very innovative or geeky team members, others might become overwhelmed or discouraged by the profusion of stuff. In any team, those who are most enthusiastic about a particular application should be prepared to test it thoroughly, and support and instruct those unfamiliar with it.

In a Web 2.0 world, I think what home-workers increasingly need – just like pretty much everyone else – are means to Pull It All Together – manage the information flow effectively: institutions should be prepared to provide guidance, support, training and tools. This could mean something like iGoogle’s personalised pages, with a mixture of newsfeeds, bookmarks, email and chat alerts, or anything else that provides a functional personal portal (e.g. Peña-López’s Personal Research Portal).

Richard

P.S. Such a shame Ariadne’s not a blog – when are they going to get with it?!

Even when you are self-employed person, when you think you might escape this type of black and white thinking, it is always difficult to work out how equipment is used proportionally for work and play, which is essentially what the tax man asks us to do in our tax returns I find it difficult to set an arbitrary proportion in cost terms for my work use of my BlackBerry, for example…Obviously it’s something that needs to be recorded, but it always feels like a bit like a school report!

Distractions like housework and your ‘comfy’ bed are often referred to when people talk about remote workers but the biggest distraction is the one that’s there wherever you are….the Internet!!

I think I might have a go at downloading the grease monkey script and trying the cloak approach. Maybe I’ll write a blog post on it.

There’s a good article at WebWorkerDaily about productivity without distractions which has some good suggestions – particularly the ‘Carrot and stick’ approach. Well, the carrot part, anyway. The Greasemonkey script to block time-wasting sites seems a bit extreme, but could be useful if you were really easily distracted, I suppose.

Now I really must get back to that funding bid I’m supposed to be working on…

On this occasion, I have done something about it, in my own small way. I have written an article outlining what the government is seeking to do and my views. But, I have also produced a ‘draft’ letter that can be personalised and sent to local MP’s. I am urging other likeminded people to reproduce the article, to include their own comments, after all, not everyone will agree with all my comments and then publicise it. Maybe we can start a programme where people start to bombard their MP’s with a demand that they do not support the latest data communication bill. The link is here if you would care to take a look.
http://www.power-to-the-people.co.uk/2008/10/public-call-time-big-brother-britain/

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